The Friday Photo
October 17, 2014
Haiku and photograph, Janice Lynch Schuster
Sculpture, Pat Monk, physicist
Category: The Friday Photo
I already have a recipe for potato salad
The Friday Photo
October 10, 2014
Last summer a guy posted a satirical Kickstarter campaign for a potato salad recipe. He ended up raising $55K. Fortunately I have a couple of good potato salad recipes, including the slightly spicy one from the Vortex in Atlanta (no fundraising required).
What I realized I don’t have in my cookbook is a recipe for finding my way to whatever my next job will be. I’ve got a lot of ingredients but what I don’t have is a way to find the right recipe.
Some friends suggested I step outside my comfort zone and make an ask for help to go to Life Is a Verb Camp in early November. The Camp Director, my friend Patti Digh, has planned teaching and learning sessions that include poets Naomi Shihab Nye and
Ellen Bass, nonprofit leaders that span the spectrum, an Ambassador for the Alzheimer Association, artists, writers, and health leaders. I’m not going because I want to learn how to write poetry, but rather because I need to figure out how to think differently about the ingredients I already have.
Wednesday afternoon I got two unexpected gifts outside my Go Fund Me campaign, one that included a message, “Do not put this effort down.” As Progressives know, much attention and money are focused on heated campaigns across the country, not exactly the best time to launch a smaller one like my camp campaign.
After I let the unexpected generosity soak in overnight, I was able to cut my goal be more than half. Now I’m really close to going to my first ever sleep over camp on November 6th and I need your help to top the $500 mark by Monday.
This campaign isn’t beholden to a bunch of PACs, but I am offering to work with donors on their own marketing/nonprofit projects as a return on their investment. If you make a donation of any size, of course I’ll be grateful. If you can share the link with your friends, that will help a lot.
I’ve stretched way beyond what I thought possible. It is scary, but a good campaign requires a candidate that is willing to make The Big Ask. This camp candidate is asking for your help and support now.
Locked and loaded for Fall
Another yard sign for peace
The Friday Photo
September 26, 2014
Watching paint dry
The Friday Photo
September 19, 2014
I have decided on paint colors for my office.
Reading assignment
The Friday Photo
September 12, 2014
The Koran figures into so many important discussions and decisions for the world. I decided to read it myself.
West Charlotte Lions
The Friday Photo
September 5, 2014
The first floor room in the corner is where I took Latin.
The middle of the second floor is where I took French classes.
If I had gone to high school before Swann v Char-Meck Schools was decided in 1970,
West Charlotte High School would have only been a black school in a low-income neighborhood all the way across town.
I grew up in a family that believes in and supports public education. As a result I will always be a proud West Charlotte Lion, Class of ’79.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
The Friday Photo
August 29, 2014
To borrow a slogan from an old toothpaste commercial, “Put your money where your mouth is.” I’m making a real effort to find and support businesses who are willing to post a sign saying guns don’t belong in theirs.
Awesome! Do it again!
The Friday Photo
August 22, 2014
We paddled to Factory Shoals last Saturday, where the Alcovy River joins Lake Jackson. Chase shouted, “Awesome! Do it again” after he managed to tip himself and his grandfather out of their canoe at the bottom of the rapids.
Bid Day
The Friday Photo
August 15, 2014
Yesterday I had to meet someone at Georgia College in nearby Milledgeville. I snagged a great parking spot facing the campus quad shaded by tall trees and surrounded by beautiful buildings.
I happened upon sorority Bid Day announcements, a ritual that is taking place across college campuses now.
I’d never seen a Bid Day because my alma mater, Guilford College, doesn’t have Greek organizations.
A throng of young women stood together while shrieks and cheers erupted among them. They were standing in groups with matching t-shirts and tank tops while the newest members pulled their new shirt over what they had worn to the quad. Women around them hugged and smiled.
They were a homogenized group-slender attractive young white women, most with long hair, standing on suntanned legs below short shorts. They looked excited in their uniform colored groups.
I wondered about the young women who didn’t get their first choice, who couldn’t participate because of the cost (it is easily thousands with dues, clothes for social events, etc), who thought they were too heavy, not pretty enough, too dark skinned, had no legacy to claim as leverage, or who didn’t make it to Bid Day at all.
A social worker told me she once worked shifts for the suicide/crisis phone line in Athens during Bid Week at UGA. The phones rang off the hook with young women who were falling apart due to the outcomes of rushing a sorority. What a hard way to begin a college career.
I hope leaving the quad with a much coveted t–shirt won’t keep those young woman from really stretching themselves well beyond the confines of their sorority house and Greek life.
The rules of the game are changing
The Friday Photo
August 8, 2014 
This looks like a lot meetings do, with PowerPoint presentations and charts that are hard to read from the back of the room. It was the first public meeting held by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to discuss how Georgia will meet the EPA’s carbon pollution rule. Georgia’s Plant Scherer is the biggest carbon spewing coal plant in the country, so the task ahead of the state’s regulatory agency is steep. They didn’t seem very enthusiastic.
For those of us who have spent years advocating for reducing carbon pollution, yesterday was no ordinary meeting. The rules of the game are changing, literally.
Wading into the new normal
The Friday Photo
August 1, 2014
We’ve been very much out of our regular routine at work and home due to an illness in our family. The dogs couldn’t believe it when David left late Sunday afternoon to spend another night in his mother’s hospital room.
My mother-in-law is much improved, but will be staying in the hospital’s extended care area for a while.
We’re wading into whatever the new normal will be for us now. What passed as routine for us 10 days ago is gone forever.
The best of Southern traditions
The Friday Photo
July 25, 2014
About two years ago a woman newly relocated to Sandersville from New York State readily made friends with a group of women who like to begin their day with a 5:45 aerobics classes.
Just a few months after settling in arthritis problems flared up and she required a second hip replacement. She was determined to cook and freeze food so her family wouldn’t have to care for her and cook.
We told her not to bother but she looked puzzled. Our collective response was, “In the South you don’t cook when there is a serious illness or death in your family. We’ll bring you meals. That’s what we do for each other.”
This Southern tradition continues with my family this week. Within just a few hours of letting people know there is an illness in our family (manageable but disrupting our regular routines) I got a message asking when we needed food, and for how many people.
Last night my father-in-law went home to fresh vegetables and homemade chicken and dumplings for dinner from a much-loved family friend, Joy Pendry. She insisted that all I need to do is raise my hand again if we need help.
Because that is the way we do things here, y’all.
Sewing for a Jedi Knight
The Friday Photo
July 11, 2014
I’ve been at a loss as to what I can sew for my grandson. This week I realized I could make a pair of cargo shorts for him. His mother told me if I got Star Wars fabric he would never take them off. We’ll know soon how the Young Jedi Knight likes them.
I’ll take mine without a side of ammo
The Friday Photo
July 4, 2014
Get Happy
The Friday Photo
June 27, 2014
Best birthday party ever
Farmers for extreme weather
The Friday Photo
June 13, 2014
We won’t have to do that again this summer
The Friday Photo
June 6, 2014
Last Saturday we climbed, hiked, spelunked, swam, and paddled the Upper Ogeechee. Five hours after putting in for a short paddle (that included a thirty minute storm delay), we finally made it to our take out point. We can check the Upper Ogeechee off our list for this year.
Worth reading again
The Friday Photo
May 30, 2014
I read ” I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” during my first semester at Guilford. All freshmen were required to take an interdisciplinary studies course, and the topic that year was Freedom. We worked our way through some challenging material that semester, which also included Dostoyevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” from The Brothers Karamazov and work by theologian Paul Tillich.
Most of the books I saved from college and grad school were donated to a library book sale a few weeks ago. I don’t know what happened to my copy of “The Grand Inquisitor” but I put “Caged Bird” and the Paul Tillich book in the box taken to the library. While I was in Augusta yesterday I bought a copy of “Caged Bird” to read again.
My classmate Dan Carpenter and I still talk about how high the bar was set for us that first semester by our professor, Jonathan Malino. Dan is still one of my dearest friends, Jonathan’s teaching still informs my work and ideas, and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is still worth reading.